


Time Fragments

by bicycles



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Feelings, M/M, Post Beach Divorce, Spoilers, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1690667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bicycles/pseuds/bicycles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*SPOILERS for Days of Future Past, particularly in the first chapter* It has been more than ten years since the Bay of Pigs. These are the reflections of Magneto, as he ages and learns from his mistakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This may end up having several parts, depending on how I feel about this first part. I wanted to explore the events of Days of Future Past, looking ahead to the future of the X-Men and Magneto's role in that future.

The air in the cabin tasted stale. He took another drink of the scotch, but the taste of the air remained. It lingered on his tongue, like the memory of his former cell, and this. His renewed freedom was not freedom, in the sense that he had known it prior to his arrest and subsequent imprisonment in the Pentagon. His renewed freedom was a stale, pale imitation of what he had had. In exchange for it, he had to give Charles what he did not want to give him: penitence. He had to give the man penitence, even though he had not done wrong, even though he had done exactly what he had set out to do. Friendships were messy like that. They forced him to concede where he did not wish, and to annex that which was not his. He forced these thoughts from his mind. It was a skill he had learned in prison, to sit still and quiet his mind until nothing remained except the hum of the airplane engine and the cool touch of condensation against his fingers. Setting his glass on the table, Erik turned his focus to the window. A sea of clouds spread below the airplane, a thick wall of white, the only barrier between himself and the Atlantic, cold and wet and thousands of feet beneath them. 

 

"I know what you're thinking, bub." 

 

The smell of cigar reached Erik's lungs. He didn't have to turn to know who had spoken. Another unwelcome aspect of his freedom was their new guest, the one who spoke of the future as though he had lived it. 

 

"I doubt you have that pleasure," said Erik. "To ever know what I am thinking."

 

"You're thinking that you want to crash this plane into the waves, and hope you live long enough to disappear. You're thinking this isn't what you expected when you woke up this morning. And you're thinking none of this is worth your time."

 

"How succinct. I suppose next you'll tell me what I had for breakfast this morning."

 

"Not Chuck. Just someone who's been there."

 

Erik stood and turned until he leaned over the other man. The cabin was small enough that he was able to accomplish these two acts in a singular motion. Before him sat a man in a tan leather jacket, barely able to contain his broad chest, and ridiculous flared jeans. Before him sat a man with hairy knuckles that ended in a cigar and a look, a look etched onto his face of complete self-assurance. He hated that look more than he hated this cabin, this sham of an escape, and everything that had happened since. He breathed in the scent of the man's cologne, as though it were a noxious odor. 

 

"I don't know where 'there' is," Erik said, "but I  _know_  that you don't know anything about me. The next time -" 

 

Logan grabbed Erik's wrist, detaining him. "I know more than you think. I know what you become. Might do well to remember that next time you threaten a man. Like's a me, who knows what I might do, even with Chuck on board."

 

\-- -- -- 

 

Everything had changed. He had noticed it during the escape and on the runway, but here, the change was palpable. 

 

"I didn't kill the president," he said, as though that made a difference. 

 

"You expect me to believe that?"

 

He rested against the door frame to Charles' cabin. He was watching Charles, who was watching the wall. The cabin was small, with only a narrow bed and table to fill the space before them. Unlike most of Charles' former possessions, only a glass and a half empty bottle of scotch filled this table. No books. No postcards. No half-played game of chess. 

 

"Charles, you must believe me."

 

"I know what I must do Erik. I'm afraid that didn't make the cut."

 

"You're destroying yourself with that," said Erik, indicating the scotch. "Did  _that_  make the cut?"

 

"You lost your ability to criticize my choices when you left me to die on a beach," said Charles. Each word seemed to drip with the resentment that Erik felt inside himself, the pain that had only grown after ten years of imprisonment. It was as though Charles could take that pain and throw it back at him, amplified. "You lost that ability when you took my sister from me."

 

"She's not your sister... Nor is she a pet. She made the decision to join me. To fight for  _our_  cause. And what have you done? Wasted your abilities? Given yourself up to the drink? I see that my time spent in prison has been productive for you."

 

He didn't want to give the penitence that he owed, nor would he. It lurked in the back of his mind though, a reminder of what he had done. But his anger seemed to act for him. He straightened, preparing a scathing remark for his departure. He had concocted a few during his imprisonment, the usual villainous scripting. He had never needed them. His guards had never dared to get too close.

 

"Why did you do it?"

 

"Sorry?"

 

"The assassination. If you didn't do it, why were you there? Why the bent bullet? Why the evidence pointed towards you?"

 

"I bent the bullet to save him." The confession came unplanned. He had expected to leave, to storm out in a flurry that could have only been improved with a cape. But he found himself unbalanced under the sudden blue-eyed gaze of the professor, his best friend, the only man in the world that he had ever trusted. These were the titles given to Charles. These were the titles owed penitence. "I bent the bullet to save him because he was one of us. I didn't -"

 

"I believed you once, Erik, and you destroyed that. Why should I do that again? Why should I put myself through this again? Why should I allow you to walk in here, and take everything that I've ever had, again and again and -" 

 

"You shouldn't." Erik wanted to cross the room and take his friend into his arms, but he couldn't. He wanted to apologize, but he couldn't do that either. He couldn't beg, nor repent, nor offer promises that he'd never do  _that_  again.  _That_  was inevitable. He knew it as well as he knew himself, as well as this Logan knew the future. He could only watch from where he stood, watch as he lost forever that which he desperately wanted to keep. "I've known what I am for a long time. I'm only asking that you believe this."

 

He left before Charles could respond. He left before he could be sucked into those blue eyes, offering his insincere apologies and dreams, as though anything Charles could do would change who he was. 

 

\-- -- -- 

 

"How long has it been?"

 

They were in a Paris hotel room. It was a cheap room, barely big enough for two, situated on the left bank where tourists and students intermixed. The very wallpaper had the pungent odor of cigarette smoke. The duvet covers were stained. The only small comfort was a window ledge, upon which Erik sat, newspaper across his lap, as he watched Hank carrying the chest set. Charles and Logan had gone to explore the site of tomorrow's summit, leaving Erik and Hank, who was, Erik knew, more watchdog than friend. 

 

"You're offering?" The older man asked, pulling a cigarette from his pocket. He lit it in one fluid motion. 

 

"I'm not the professor."

 

"No," said Erik, blowing smoke out the open window. They had a view of another building, typical in a city as crowded as this one. "But you won't cheat."

 

Hank seemed to accept this and placed the chess set before them. Once they had started, he said, "I'm the last person to suggest this. After what happened, after Cuba and Raven, I'd like nothing better to drop you back off at the Pentagon. You've more than proven that you're a monster. I don't need another Bay of Pigs to prove that."

 

There were a few moves in which neither of them said anything. He knew already these sentiments. He had known them long before he had escaped prison. He had known them on the beach, when he had taken Raven and the others, when he had led them off the favored path. There was no rebuttal that he could give that would satisfy the beast before him. 

 

"I did what needed to be done."

 

"You did what you needed to be done," Hank corrected. He moved his bishop, and Erik took it with his knight. "Damn it. What you need to do now is fix it."

 

"There's nothing to be fixed."

 

Hank's hand seemed to hover over his, and then dropped to his queen. "The professor -"

 

"Charles Xavier is not a toy who needs to be repaired. He is a man, and a scientist, who needs -"

 

"His best friend to not be an asshole." The words sounded crude in Hank's mouth, but Erik had deserved them. 

 

"I can't be the man he wants me to be." Erik easily checked Hank's king, using a move that he'd learned from Charles. If he had essentially called himself an asshole, he had accepted it. What he had done to Charles was unforgivable, if only the others could see that. What happened in the future didn't matter. What mattered was the present and his sins, sins for which there was no atonement. "I've never been that man, and he needs to understand that."

 

"The professor understands more than you think," said Hank. "He's been holed up in that mansion a long time. A long time to think."

 

"You sound like Logan."

 

"Guess that neanderthal and I have more in common than I'd like. Another go?"

 

Erik seemed to smile, in spite of himself, the cigarette hanging off his lower lip. "I suppose you do need the practice." 

 

\-- -- --

 

The summit didn't go as planned, or so Erik suspected, as he found himself face to face with Raven, in the middle of a crowded plaza. People surrounded them. People recorded him as he dragged the bullet from her lower calf muscle, as he explained to her the necessity of his actions, and as Beast came tumbling out of the hotel on top of him. They fought, but in the end, Erik managed to escape, to disappear among the crowd that had haunted him. He knew what he was doing, even as his pace slowed. He was leaving them behind, leaving behind those who had come for him in his time of need. Abandonment. The word seemed to ring out in his ears as he checked into a new hotel, farther out from the city this time. 

 

He had abandoned them. 

 

He had abandoned them in order to reclaim his freedom. The new word seemed to reverberate on his tongue. It seemed salty and sweet all at once. He tasted it again. 

 

He had not been free for a long time. 

 

\-- -- -- 

 

"I owe you something, Charles." He was standing now at the door that led to the study. He was standing and watching the back of the professor, who had saved him again. He knew, as he always did, that he didn't deserve this kindness, or this hope that seemed to seep around the edges of Charles' very essence. "I owe you something for today."

 

"You don't owe me anything, Erik." The professor didn't look up from the charts on his desk. Erik knew these were new read-outs from Cerebro. He knew that Charles had started work immediately on what he had promised the other, and he knew, too, that if Charles didn't want him to be here, he wouldn't be. The locks to the mansion had been far too easy, even for him. So it was that he had this knowledge, and the knowledge, too, that yet again his anger had almost killed the man before him. 

 

"An apology, then."

 

"No." At last, the professor's eyes met his. They were the same piercing blue that he remembered from the plane, an absurd thought. Eye color didn't change. "I don't want to hear your excuses, or insincere apologies, or promises to do better next time. You tried to kill the president.  _Again,_  I might add. I'm done protecting you from yourself. You must learn to live with these consequences."

 

"And if I don't want to?" A step. He was standing now inside the study. "If I can't?"

 

"I have faith that you can and - and will. I have seen the future."

 

"I had hoped you might join me." The words were a whimsy, barely spoken. "I had hoped -"

 

"I can't join you, my friend. My future is here with the school, and yours -"

 

There was a moment in which Erik thought he saw a flicker of something else in Charles' eyes, something that had not been there in a long time. But it was gone as soon as he had been able to recognize it. 

 

"Your future is elsewhere. I've seen it. But I've seen, too, that we will be together again. I've seen that you will come back here, when you are able to give up what you believe is owed... when you are able to give up this futile crusade to protect us. Erik -"

 

They stood now, closer and farther apart than they had in a long time. Erik remained near the books, eyes lingering on a battered copy of  _War and Peace_. He knew where Charles was, as distinctly as he knew each piece of metal in this room, and those pulsing tendrils of telepathy that seemed to lurk in the back of his mind. He knew, too, what Charles thought, what Charles wanted him to do in that very moment, as though he had ever been able to prove the professor wrong. He didn't dare take those final steps towards the desk and seal his fate. He didn't dare act upon his impulses, upon this heady wave of need and desire and wish fulfillment. 

 

He took a step backwards. 

 

"I understand." But he didn't. He didn't understand, even as he fled.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Please be aware this chapter features mentions of the Holocaust and character death (none of the main characters die) / suicide. 
> 
> I'm hoping this chapter transitions smoothly with the first. It has been a long time since I've attempted chapter fic, even of this disjointed and fragmented variety.

_1977._

In the years following the White House disaster, Erik found himself, for the most part, alone. He had learned to accept it, to keep his possessions to the minimum as he crisscrossed the less-traveled parts of the world. He saw the peaks of the lesser Andes, and the vast expanses of the Australian outback. His means of travel were simple: steerage in a fishing vessel, the tight sardines of coach class, and the last-minute overnight trains. He hated the trains the most, a bittersweet reminder of a childhood that he wanted to forget.

The original brotherhood had long ago dispersed. Azazel and Angel were dead. Mystique had disappeared underground. After what had happened, he didn't dare to seek her out. He considered that what was owed to Charles, if not to her, a brief hint of what he had hoped to give all those years ago. He had not sought Charles, either. Not since the night they had spoken of the future, and the impossibility of potentiality. He thought that phrase had been planted in his mind and could only blame the lingering presence of the telepath for it. 

News of Charles filtered down to him through other mutants. He met them throughout his travels, a thinly laid underground network of the bizarre and unusual. These networks had sprung together almost organically after the White House debacle and, in a sense, they were partially his creation, partially a result of his own self-declaration to fight homo sapiens. They were partially a result of the X-Men, too. After the White House, after Erik had foolishly declared his war on humanity, Charles had tried to repair public relations. He had rebuilt his school, a school all mutants knew of through reputation and rumors. 

These were the revelations that met Erik through the voices of others. He kept them and cherished them, imagining his Professor as exactly where he ought to be, and the Beast not far from his side.

Although he knew of other mutants and their whereabouts, Erik remained on the fringes of mutant society. He carried with him a stain, a hint of notoriety that made him a target for both the X-Men and law enforcement. His truce with the X-Men was a thinly made one, reliant upon an unspoken agreement to not start a war, or so he assumed. He had no such understanding with American law enforcement. He was a fugitive, a fugitive who had threatened the former president of the United States and declared himself a threat to all Americans. If there was one thing that governments disliked, it was that which they could not control. And Erik was just such a loose bolt. 

He could not have said when he first heard of her whereabouts. He may have been in Paris, walking the length of the Seine for the thousandth time, or in Venice, where the soft summer air tasted of sea salt and filth. He didn't know where he had been, or when he had decided upon that precise course of action, but somehow, he had heard the rumors, and had decided to follow them. 

\-- -- --

Emma Frost was living on the outskirts of Budapest. She had only been there a few months, or so the gossips said. She traveled in the highest style, complete with a retinue of several servants, alternated every couple of months. She was careful, and cautious, particularly after the Kennedy and Nixon incidents. And she wanted nothing to do with mutant hierarchy.

These were the facts, which Erik knew. He knew that she loved white roses and Alsatian wines. And he knew, too, that he had no hope of cornering her. She would know of his arrival before he did.

"Excuse me," he said, approaching a group of men near the village tavern, "I'm seeking a local mystery." He patched together what little Hungarian he knew; for, in spite of his gift for languages, he had not yet mastered that European tongue. "I'm hoping that the rumors I have heard are true. I am told that she has the gift of Ice." 

These were the words that he had been told to speak, for they were words that the locals would understand. He had heard stories of an Ice Queen, a woman in white who could see the future. He knew from his mutant sources that this was indeed Emma, but he had taken pleasure in the awestruck nature of the human stories. It pleased him to have these mutant powers revered and respected, as they were meant to be.

"Please, sir," said one of the men, in English, "she doesn't allow foreigners to disturb her. You must apply through one of her servants."

"And where might I find him?" 

"Here," said another of the men. "But I request fifty US dollars for the favor."

Erik surveyed the man before him, acknowledging briefly the American accent and tattered clothing. "You will do it for twenty-five," he said, "or I will see that she has you butchering pigs for the rest of your life."

"And who," said the American, "are you to make these threats?" 

"A friend of a mutual interest." There was a pause, in which the late afternoon sunlight seemed to illuminate everything clearly, and then there was the man's knife, hovering a little too close to his forehead. Erik hadn't even needed to raise his hands. "Shall we?"

The guide led him to a dirt path at the edge of the village. His mutual arrangement with the X-Men didn't include threatening locals (although strictly speaking, it didn't exclude it either). He could almost feel the distant tethers of a telepath, thousands of miles away, as though they were there and regarding him with disapproval. He knew that they were not, just as he knew that roses and wine didn't automatically win allies. Nevertheless, he followed the guide up the dirt path until he saw the outline of a small cottage. It was here that the guide stopped, and they exchanged money, leaving Erik to complete the final fifty yards on his own. 

He knocked, although he didn't have to. His mind was open to two telepaths now, one standing before him, the other only a memory.

"You should forget him," she said, standing in the doorway. She wore a flowery dress that reached her bare feet, a significant change from he had last seen her. "He's forgotten you." 

"As you forgot me?"

"Now, I know you didn't travel this far to talk about who forgot whom. I'm hiding for a reason."

"No need," he said. "Or haven't you heard out here? The Sentinel program is dead. So are Azazel and Angel. I need you."

"To be your second in command? Oh, sugar, you're going to need more than fine wine for that. You're not my type."

"Emma -" He paused to calm his thoughts. "Invite me inside."

\-- -- -- --   
Her home wasn't what he had expected. He stood in front of the unlit fireplace, grateful for the room's odd, bohemian air. It didn't suit her, but it didn't suit him either, and that was perfect. 

"Tell me again why you thought it was a brilliant idea to threaten the president? Haven't you learned anything from Shaw?" She sat, carefully poised on the edge of a paisley armchair. He suspected that it had come with the original cottage, as he thought had most of the furniture and decorations. 

"I'm interested in what we might do to secure our future," he said, brushing aside her criticism. "I believe that if we --"

"-- get together, we can conquer the world, and secure the future for mutant kind. Please. I've exactly what I need here."

"And what is that? A stolen cottage, waiting for the owner to return from holiday? A superstitious reputation? You deserve more than this. We deserve more than this."

"I'm a goddess, Erik. A seer of what is to come." She blew him a kiss. "You should try it. It'd do you good to have a few thousand people love you."

The word 'love' brought him back to a moment long ago, a hotel room covered in painted wallpaper and a worn carpet. What he remembered most was the bedside lamp, the one that didn't turn on unless you held the cord the right way, and the laughter at this discovery. 

"How can you conquer the world if you're in love with its savior?" She seemed to lean closer to him. He wanted to take a step back, but didn't.

"We're not conquering the world," he said. Thinking, as he did, of _serenity_ and _calm_ and _peace_. "I thought we might begin with something less hyperbolic."

"Oh, honey," she said, seemingly plucking the words from his head, disgusted, "you wouldn't dare go there again. She's a corpse. Dead. Six feet under."

"I've heard news of someone else." His voice didn't betray his annoyance. "Of my son."

And if he hadn't managed to intrigue Emma with presentations of wine and flowers, he had her now.

\-- -- --

She been the prettiest girl in all of Nuremberg. Before the war, their families had lived on the same street. And he had tried, repeatedly, to win her affections in the ways that school boys did. He had climbed the highest school tower, nearly beat all the German boys at the races, and scored first place at the local javelin tournament. These small victories had brought the attention of school authorities, but not hers. It wasn't until he found himself, beaten and sprawling in mud, that she had offered him her hand, and then, it was too late.

The Nazis came for his family and hers, as they had for the others. It was a subtle ensnarement. His uncle, beaten in public. His father, shamed before his former friends. Himself, shunned from schoolyard games and competitions on account of being _Jewish_.

But fortune, or perhaps the opposite, brought them together again. He met her in a small European town, where he had been tracing his tormentors. She had been as beautiful as he had remembered, and he had been as desperately set upon revenge as love. They became entangled, in what could only be a short, passionate love affair of fizzled youth. He was too stuck on revenge, and she was too afraid. The brave girl of Nuremberg was dead, and in her place, a shell seemed to exist, to mimic movements but not emotions. She told fortunes to swine who didn't deserve them. He sought to conquer the world.

They split not long after they had met. And soon after, nine months to be exact, he had found himself in Argentina, holding a gun to the heads of their former neighbors, aware that only a week before she had casually drowned herself. 

\-- -- -- 

"Erik, this is a surprise."

He was standing on the lawn of the Washington monument, the other seated in an unfamiliar wheelchair. A mere fifty feet or so of grass separated them. 

"I believed that impossible," he said. 

"Yes, well, as I often seem to remind you, I'm a telepath, not omniscient." There was a smile that Erik didn't share, and then a pause. "And how is Emma?"

"What is that you want, _professor_? You didn't come this far to share pleasantries, as much as it must amuse you." 

The distance between them seemed smaller than it should have. But he knew Charles had only gleaned the surface details of his mind. He didn't know how he knew that, only that he did, as he knew, too, that this mission wasn't likely to be successful. 

"I came to give you what you wanted. Wanda and Pietro are safe. They've joined the Avengers."

"And how is that what I wanted?"

"My friend - with whom do you plan to fight the war you're planning? Emma Frost is only an ally of convenience."

"And I suppose you're only an enemy of _convenience_."

He rejected this statement, even as he spoke it, but he didn't take it back. He felt, as he did all those years ago, like a schoolboy running races, only to find the situation the same. And this time, there was no mud, no war, no unforgiving end. There was only the harsh truth of adulthood, and that what stood before him must be what is. 

He hadn't learned to live with consequences, only to bury them. He swallowed. Unforgiving and hard. Somehow, those words had come to define him, and he had learned to accept them. He was what he needed to be; he was what he needed to survive.

_I'm not the enemy._

The words came to him, unspoken, almost as though he had invented them. They were in his mind, and he knew. They were Charles' words.

"You are."

This time, he didn't flee. He disappeared, but he didn't flee. And he hoped Charles recognized the difference. (The cape was a nice touch.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is shorter than the first two chapters and probably a complete mess. The next two parts will be better.

1985\. 

"Isn't it enough? Is it _ever_ enough?"

"My friend, what you seek and what is reality have always been two different things. I thought by now you might have learned this."

"You were always the optimist."

"No -" A hand on his. "- I live in the present. Erik, they weren't real, and they weren't yours. You mustn't take your anger out on Pietro."

He moved his hand from the windowsill, crossing the room to take a seat. A chess board was on the end table. He had almost forgotten all the times that they had sat here and puzzled out their problems over a match. Now, there was only war: war with humans, war with Sentinels, war with mutants. It didn't matter. Selfishness and decadence characterized the decade, and he had at least one of those characteristics in spades. 

He heard behind him the soft movement of wheels on carpet, and then, Charles was across from him. The soft lines of youth had faded from the other man's face, replaced here and there with the lines of war and responsibility. He knew those lines well. They marked his own eyes, and his brow where his face wrinkled whenever he had to ponder a particularly challenging problem.

At the moment, he imagined the lines on his face were more distinct than usual. The Brotherhood was in a disarray. Pietro and Wanda had disappeared from his reach. Mystique was on a solo mission, soul-searching. She hadn't told him, and he hadn't asked. And the others? The others didn't merit his time. 

The two older men played in silence. Charles was white, Erik black. It could have been a metaphor, but it wasn't. Erik Lehnsherr had as little time for metaphors as he did for his two grown children, which was, really, the whole point of this visit.

"You said that a time would come -" The words came with difficulty. He stared at the black knight in his hands, not daring to meet blue eyes on his. "There would be a time when I would join you. I remember. We were in this very room...and you said -"

"Is that what you want?"

"No." A pause. "I will take care of this."

"Erik -" His name, that accent, overwhelming fear at what he might do should this continue. 

"I'm not asking for your guidance. Let us play while we wait for them."

"I cannot tell you what you must and must not do, but you will regret your decision."

Their eyes met. In that moment, he knew what Charles expected of him, and he knew that he couldn't meet those expectations. He lowered his gaze.

"And, you, old friend," he said, rougher than he'd intended, "how many times have I requested that you stay out of my head?"

* * *

Once, Erik might have taken comfort in the fact that Charles had more control over his children than he did. Once, but not now, for here they stood: emissaries of a cause that Erik detested. Pietro stood slightly taller than Wanda, his arm protectively around his sister. 

They fought.

"I can't express -"

"Don't." _Wanda_. Despite appearances, she was more daring than her brother. She had her mother's fire. 

"You lied to me. You used your powers to create a - create a -" He was at a loss for words. So, he turned to a subject much nearer to his heart. "We're in the midst of a war."

"A war you could have won," said Pietro.

"Under the pretense of an illusion," spat Erik. "I don't appreciate your powers being used on me."

"Isn't that what you taught us, father? To relish who we are? To be - mutant _and proud_. You had everything. Power, a palace, two grown children who loved you... And now?"

And now, he had none of it. Now, he had only a facade of a friendship with Charles, a destroyed Brotherhood, and two children who hated him. 

"Go, then. If that is what you want. Play cupbearers to Stark and his friends." 

"We don't -"

"C'mon, Wanda. You were right."

Wanda lingered a moment after her brother, staring him down. "Pietro only did what he thought was necessary. It was what you would have done."

Unfortunately, she was right.

* * *

He didn't say his goodbyes. He didn't linger longer than he needed to. He was disappearing through the gardens before he heard the nagging voice in the back of his head. He ignored it. He didn't need Charles to tell him that he had been right. 

He didn't need to hear: _I told you so._

Nevermind that Charles had never been the type to gloat when he was right. That was something Erik would have done. 

* * *

Erik found himself in Paris soon after the end of the war. The X-Men had yet again defeated the Sentinels, but he hadn't been there to relish the victory. He had been on the opposite end of the world, seeking something that wasn't there. 

"You're early, sugar."

"Call it an existential crisis."

Emma seemed to hesitate before she smiled. "That bad? I told you -"

He interrupted her. "I know. Save me your 'I told you so's. I didn't listen. And now -"

"I don't see the problem." She paused, ordering a cup of wine from the nearest waiter. "The war is over. Xavier's busy with his school. The opportunities..." She hummed to herself. "Let me say though... as far as bases go... I'm not fond of the Arctic."

"I'm not interested in conquering the world."

His words surprised even him. 

"You could have phoned to tell me this," she said finally. "Why meet in person to admit defeat?"

"Because -" And here, he thought that he must have truly lost his mind. "I've decided to leave you in charge of the new Brotherhood."

"I'm flattered, but - Mystique would have been a better choice."

"Then find her," he said, standing. "And give her the reins."

He was gone before she could offer a response.


End file.
